There he goes again:

Chuck Grassley tweets on Feb. 1: I turn to History channel frequently bc I like history There is nevr any history unless u r an antique dealer. Change name!

Feb. 19: Just turned to history channel. No history. I used to get history. Why do we h v such a channel when it doesnt do history

Feb. 25: Just love history. So occasionally I turn to history channel. “mud cats” when wi they put history back on the channel

And:

Feb 11: How come the media hasn’t highlited the HYPOCRACY of PresO decision to accept SuperPac money. Aftr all he campaignd agst!!!

Feb. 4: Evrybody asking how Romney”relates”to avg person Me thinks”no problem” but if so I hv answer “just lv starch out of shirt”

And our favorite:

Feb. 20: Test.

Unsolicited advice: If you’re going to misspell hypocrisy, don’t put it in capital letters. ...

Suzanne Levitt was a Drake law professor for 10 years. Rika Lourens is the top executive of a South African company that mines, trades, cuts and sells diamonds, among other things. According to a lawsuit filed this month in federal court in Des Moines, in 2008 “Ms. Lourens contacted Ms. Levitt...for the purpose of hiring her to perform certain legal work.”

According to the lawsuit, Levitt, who is 51, was to get $120,000 to help in the acquisition of a mine in the U.S., was to move to South Africa and be paid at least 500,000 rand per year for further legal work there — a rand is worth about 13 cents — and was to pay certain travel and other expenses. And, it says, Levitt was also promised a one-time payment of 1 million rand. According to the lawsuit, Levitt was paid $20,000 of that $120,000. And, it says, though Levitt, who now is back in Des Moines, did the promised legal work for three years in South Africa, she was never paid a dime. Or a rand.

That all adds up to a lot of money, in any currency. It works out to more than $400,000, not counting expenses, that Levitt says she is owed in her breach-of-contract suit. And that doesn’t count the value of the shares in various diamond companies that Levitt says she was promised but never got. She — and her attorneys at Duncan, Green, Brown and Langeness — have asked the Federal court to award her the money she says she is owed, plus interest and punitive damages.

Besides Lourens, defendants in the suit include Demindex Resources Corp. and Louis Oosthuizen, a lawyer for the company and Lourens. According to the lawsuit, he was “aware throughout that Ms. Lourens and Demindex did not intend to pay” Levitt for her services.

Levitt’s “Linked-In” profile says she currently is “professor of law and international mining and resource development consultant.” It does not say that she is unique among lawyers in that she is willing to work for three years without getting paid. ...

Gannett Co., which owns the daily newspapers in Des Moines and Iowa City, continues to look after its own — its own executives. To cut costs, it plans to buy out as many as 665 employees, including 25 or so in Des Moines and a couple in Iowa City. To raise revenue, it plans to start charging for some visits to the Gannett internet site. Then, last week, it announced it is raising its dividend a whopping 150 percent — to 20 cents a quarter from 8 cents. Among the major beneficiaries: Gannett executives.

A year ago, Gracia C. Martore, now the company’s chief executive, owned 632,118 shares of stock. On an annual basis, the increase in the dividend will give her another $303,416.64 — as much as the salaries of a handful of the employees to be bought out in Des Moines. And that doesn’t count the money she’ll get on the thousands of shares she’ll be getting in coming years as her stock options mature. Robert Dickey, the head of the newspaper division, owned 242,570 shares as of the proxy statement that came out 10 months ago. The increased dividend will give him another $116,430.60. In 2010, the latest year for which figures are available, Martore, who is 60 years old and was #2 in the company, had total compensation of $5.4 million. She was promoted to chief executive officer in October of 2011. Dickey had total compensation of $2.8 million in 2010.

One other thing: A few weeks ago, Gannett reported that 2011 earnings from continuing operations were $1.89 a share. That was down about 20 percent from the $2.35 of a year before. ...

Skinny apologizes to the wonderful Patrick Clancy for calling him Patrick Casey in the print version of last week’s column. CV